As seconds turned to minutes and death mounted around me, that moment didn’t come. Fewer and fewer opponents came against Stefano and Harthon, and the cacophony of noise lessened, quieting until the crash of weapons was sporadic and there were no more blue tunics standing upright.
Harthon’s shoulders relaxed before Stefano’s. He turned, fiery gaze crashing into mine, a lethal warrior bathed in the blood of every man he’d slain.
I tried to stop my trembling.
I failed.
“Is any of the blood yours?” he asked.
I looked down at myself. Splatters of blood colored the dried mud. I shook my head.
“I need words.”
I glared at him. Did he wish to hear my voice tremble? To know just how weak I was after he’d thrust me into battle? Damn the skies if I would allow that. Tightening every muscle in my jaw to stop its shaking, I answered, “It isn’t mine.”
“Are you injured in other ways?”
By some miracle, “No.”
His eyes roamed over me, once, twice, as if confirming the statement for himself. Finding whatever verification he sought, he began to walk away.
“Did you kill him?” I said to his back.
Harthon paused, sparing me another look. “He isn’t dead, but he took a lethal blow before getting away.”
Harthon hadn’t killed Koerlyn? How could he have not finished the job, ensured his final blow ended—
Maybe it’s because he had to come and save you.
I swallowed, guilt rolling in before anger washed in behind it.
It wasn’t my fault I was here. I wasn’t prepared for battle—hadn’t grown up on violence and fighting and blades. It had been Harthon’s choice to bring me here instead of sending me back to his city center ahead of the battle.
Because to him, I was a traitor.
As I watched him stalk away, stepping over deformed bodies, I wondered if he would have bothered to save me had it not been for my eyes.
Chapter 3
The victory was swift. Koerlyn’s soldiers were all but demolished, the fake funeral and ambush proving incredibly effective. For now, we couldn’t know whether the Princeps himself lived, but even if he did, it would be a long recovery for both him and his forces.
I sensed Harthon intended to capitalize on Third’s weakness, hammering hard and continuing his takeover of the Territory.
I should have felt relief at Koerlyn’s defeat. He was no longer a threat. He couldn’t cause me pain again, hurt others, or search for Merelda and hold her over my head. But as the quiet post-battle hours rolled into days of trekking to Harthon’s city center, relief was nowhere to be found. It was as if thick ropes had been wrapped across my chest and torso, inescapably tight and relentless in their pressure.
It was no great wonder why. The warmth in my chest, ever present, urged me to take Harthon, a man who despised me, into the swirling walls of the Domus. But there’d been no opportunity to act on it yet. I imagined that opportunity would come when we arrived at the Citadel tomorrow, but even then, it wasn’t like we could justgo.While I knew the route into Centralis, I didn’t have a concrete map in my head—more of a sense of the right direction and wrong. I would need to find some way to visualize the path so we weren’t blindly following my feelings.
When my thoughts weren’t unpacking that dilemma, they turned to images of the battle and its brutal aftermath. I’d done my best not to look at the bodies we’d passed, but with how they littered the ground, blood covering every inch of earth not occupied by flesh, it was impossible. Those scenes would then morph into the memory of the three lives Koerlyn had ruthlessly slain before me while I was his captive, unable to do a damned thing but watch as life vanished from pleading eyes.
Perhaps they would still be alive had I not brought myself to Koerlyn. Just like every person who had died in that battle.
It was that torturous thought that consumed me as I sat, back against the rough bark of a tree trunk, sky growing dark as fires were lit and camp was made.
“Fish Eyes.”
I chased the infuriating nickname to its creator. In the muted light, Callen’s green eyes were vivid against his sun-pinkened cheeks as he approached. Spine stiffening against the tree, I warily gauged his attitude.
This was the first time I’d seen him since my escape from Koerlyn. His hands had been the first to reach for me as I’d raced to camp, barely conscious on horseback. But as third-in-command, he’d been occupied since then. Callen had always been friendly, but he might share Harthon’s feelings about what I’d done.
